Across the nation, school districts are grappling with the closure of educational institutions. A significant decline in student enrollment, which directly affects funding, is a primary concern. This article examines the factors contributing to this trend and the broader implications for public education.
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
In our ongoing exploration of living costs, today’s focus is on public education. School closures across the U.S. are indicative of broader economic issues, such as affordability. Insights from Wailin Wong and Adrian Ma from The Indicator shed light on this matter.
ADRIAN MA, BYLINE: Picture a scene from a movie or TV show where an outsider consultant attends a town hall meeting, stirring local anger. In the context of public school closures, Tracy Richter plays this role.
TRACY RICHTER: “I just don’t want to be known as a national expert on school closure. But unfortunately, this is the role that has found me in this time of my career.”
MA: Tracy holds the position of vice president of planning services at HPM, a company specializing in construction management across various sectors, including K-12 education.
WAILIN WONG, BYLINE: Tracy finds joy in advising on new school constructions, but increasingly, his role involves addressing underutilized school buildings.
MA: One of Tracy’s clients, Atlanta Public Schools, illustrates the issue clearly; the district has a capacity for 70,000 students, but only 50,000 are enrolled.
WONG: Two main factors contribute to the enrollment decline in Atlanta and nationwide. Firstly, families are having fewer children. Since 2007, the U.S. birth rate has dropped by over 20%.
RICHTER: “I think that the birth rates are going to stay low, but that’s not all of it.”
MA: Secondly, housing challenges play a role. The scarcity of affordable housing in major metros deters young families, combining with low birth rates to reduce student numbers. This scenario threatens public schools, reliant on per-student funding, while fixed costs like maintenance remain unchanged.
WONG: Erica Meltzer, national editor at Chalkbeat, highlights that low enrollment is a widespread issue for all district sizes.
ERICA MELTZER: “For a lot of these communities, you start to have questions of, is the school operating in an efficient manner? Can they afford a nurse, an art teacher, a music teacher, a social worker? And increasingly, the answer is no.”
MA: According to Erica, even a small decrease in students can critically affect a school’s viability.
MELTZER: “Sometimes, the difference of just five or 10 kids can be sort of that make-or-break point because if you have, you know, $10,000 per student, that’s $50,000 or $100,000. And that starts to be several staff positions. Like, can you have classroom aides? It can be as little as five or 10 students in the overall enrollment of a school that become the point where they can no longer offer a robust range of services.”
WONG: School closures disrupt communities, severing students’ ties with peers and teachers. Research connects closures to negative impacts on academic performance.
MA: Erica points out that emergency federal funding during the pandemic postponed some districts’ financial crises. However, this aid has been depleted, and the current administration’s policies favor private schooling, as seen with a new federal program to assist with private school costs.
WONG: This federal initiative, the first of its kind, complements a surge in state-level private school programs. Although Erica believes these vouchers aren’t the primary cause of declining public school enrollment, their growth adds complexity to the national discourse on school closures.
MELTZER: “You have the individual choices that parents are making, thinking about their kid, and then there’s the system-level effects of millions of individual choices, and then there’s sort of the policy universe that creates the choices that are available to the parents.”
WONG: Wailin Wong.
MA: Adrian Ma, NPR News.
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